UP FRONT: BUDGET
Bridging gap while
building future
Ealing Council has to close a budget gap of more than £73million over the next
four years, which has led the council to take on this challenge in innovative ways.
T
here is a national, and local, background of
rising costs and increasing demand for services,
especially in social care, and dramatic cuts in
councils’ funding from central government.
Councillor Johnson:
‘This smarter
working will help
us find our best
path through these
intensely difficult
times’
£73m
THE BUDGET GAP
The accumulated effect of public
funding austerity measures,
introduced since 2010, will
mean the council will have
£143million less government
funding to spend on local
services in 2021 than it did at
the start of this decade. This
is the equivalent of a 64% drop
in government funding, which is a
greater cut than both the London and
national average.
This bleak picture will not go away in the coming
years; and the council eventually expects to have made a
staggering £265million of savings between 2010 and 2021.
Councillor Yvonne Johnson, the council’s cabinet member
for finance, performance and customer services, said: “This
cut, along with a series of other factors including an ageing
population, rising costs and increasing demand for social
care services, means that the council has no choice but to
rethink the way that it pays for and delivers local services.
But our response to this challenge is a positive one.
budget gap
4
around ealing February 2018
64%
drop in
funding
‘POSITIVE CHANGES FOR THE FUTURE’
“The council has embarked on an ambitious
programme to transform the way it works. Future
Ealing seeks to improve the lives of local people by
prioritising the council’s limited resources against
nine key aims [see October’s Around Ealing at
ealingnewsextra.co.uk/around-ealing]. Protecting
the borough’s most vulnerable residents is central to
this programme.